Eavesdropping
by unamuerte
Summary: Sweeney eavesdrops on Mrs Lovett. He discovers a dark secret. Read it to find out people. Two-chapter one-shot!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just a one-shot idea I had to get out of my system.  
**

**~Eavesdropping~**

Sweeney took the broiling London sun, and watched it burn. He lifted up his thumb and finger against the glass, and pretended he was pinching the sun in his hands. He imagined he was like God, squeezing the life-blood out of the world.

His morning was like any other. It was like the long roll of mornings to come. Hearing nothing, dreaming nothing, doing nothing. It was a list, a calendar, a collection of absolute _nothings. _

Today would be like any other, Sweeney thought. Mrs Lovett will bring me the breakfast I will not eat, and I will wear the floor-boards down to nothing with my pacing.

_I will wait. _

_Wait._

_Wait. _

_Wait for the first of the bleeders to make their entrance into hell. If any come at all. _

He was drifting, like one of the mindless beggars weaving their way through the growing crowds. He was drifting without taking a step out of the room. Sweeney Todd could drift through time and drop off the centre of the world, and not give a –

"The world is filled with shit," he almost spat, turning away from the half-misted windows. In his mirror, he saw only more masks. "More shit," he said aloud.

He held his razors to the light, and saw in them the rims of his hollow eyes.

Sweeney thought of the day, and how he was going to take it and waste it like every other. Take it and watch it burn.

"Mr Todd!" A curious head poked through the door.

Sweeney clenched his razors, and imagined the rivers of blood that would run either side of the boy's neck, if he were to take the blades and slash – "What?" he snapped.

The boy tensed up, ready to run. "I'm worried," he blurted.

"_Good."_ Sweeney wanted him scared. He wanted the whole of London to feel gorged and bloated with wickedness. As sick and tormented as himself.

Toby glared. "Mum isn't well."

Sweeney snapped the blade shut. But the work waited. Bleeding the boy this early would merely mean a mess to clean up. "What's wrong with her?" he said at last.

The boy shrugged. "How should I know? I ain't a doctor."

"Then how is it you know she's sick?" Sweeney hissed.

"I just _know_. She ain't got up yet, an' she's been sayin' strange things – "

"You've been eavesdropping, boy," the barber accused.

"No I never!"

Sweeney stalked downstairs, down to the parlour.

Toby followed him stubbornly in the corner. "I'll stay 'ere, if you don't mind."

"Leave," he commanded the boy, and when Toby did not move, Sweeney pushed past him and stopped at the end of the hall.

He'd never been down this way. There'd been no need. "Mrs Lovett's room?" he asked.

The boy nodded.

Sweeney considered.

If Mrs Lovett had lost the plot, he had to know. The barber briefly panicked – what if she died, and he was left alone to slit throats and dispose of the bodies? It would mean extra work, for one – but who would skin the bodies, bake all the pies? Sweeney had never spared a thought as to where his breakfast came from each morning. It was as if Mrs Lovett were a witch brewing potions out of ash. He wouldn't know what to do or where to start, if she were to suddenly cark it.

But she wasn't dead.

He could hear her muffled voice on the other side of the door, singing in scratchy, slightly off-key, high-pitched tones.

"_An' the Lord will guide thee, _

_Little lamb, _

_On your journey to the dark land,_

_Yes, little one, fond as I am_

_Of your sweet little laugh,_

_Even you must go, my child,_

_Go, follow the Lord an' he will –"_

"Mrs Lovett!" he thundered on the door. _Who on earth was she talking to?_

The singing stopped abruptly. Silence came from the inside. Clearly, Mrs Lovett was hoping he would go away.

"I will _wait,_ Mrs Lovett."

Eventually, the door opened, and Mrs Lovett stuck her head through like a sheep with its head caught in a picket fence. "Yes, Mr T? How can I help?"

"I'm not one of your customers, Mrs Lovett," he said, frowning.

The baker's hair was almost ruby-red, pulled into tight little corkscrews around her head. Her face was also painted – ruby lips and rouge on her cheeks. "I suggest, my pet, that you wipe it all off, unless you are planning to sell something _other_ than pies."

Mrs Lovett's face turned beetroot red. It wasn't often she felt embarrassed, or angry. But it was obvious that she had gone to a lot of trouble that morning, and she certainly didn't appreciate Sweeney implying she looked like a common whore. Especially when he was partly the reason for her going to so much trouble. Nellie went to shut the door in his face.

Sweeney was quicker, and blocked it with one swift hand. He held it wide, and took in the simpe cotton dress she had on, tied beneath her bust with a dusty pink ribbon. She had matching white gloves for her hands, and a creamy shawl around her shoulders. It was something a country girl would have worn. Something his Lucy might have worn.

"Not so fast, Mrs Lovett," he said.

Since he was staring, Nellie decided to defend herself. "I happen to think I look rather nice, Mr T. But you wouldn't notice that sort of thing, seeing as you've neva looked at a woman since your Lucy –"

He slammed the door against the wall. "Don't you dare mention my wife."

Mrs Lovett might have argued with him. But she didn't. She picked up the large wicker basket from the floor, and held it as a barrier between them.

She was obviously going somewhere. Sweeney didn't like to be thwarted. And that included witholding information. "The shop needs opening," he said, pretending Mrs Lovett wasn't dressed at all.

"It can wait," Mrs Lovett gulped. "I'm going out today Mr T, so if you want to open it on your own - "

Sweeney snatched the basket from her hand, and threw it to the ground. The contents spilled across the floor. "You won't, Mrs Lovett. I don't decide to take personal days off. Neither will you."

But she wasn't listening. She dropped to the floor, and was scrambling to gather up the mess."Drats!"

One of the items rolled out of Mrs Lovett's grasp, and came to rest by Sweeney's booted foot.

She threw her hand over it, but Sweeney was quicker. He brought his foot crunching down slightly, and she snatched it back.

"Leave it Mr T," she begged, but Sweeney was merciless.

"What's this?" Sweeney brought it up to the only window of light in Mrs Lovett's gloomy room.

"Nothin'!" She made to grab it, but Sweeney pushed her forward. White skirts went tumbling, and Mrs Lovett landed on the edge of her bed, distressed and out-of-breath.

The toy almost disappeared in his hands. It was so small - so soft and yellow. He immediately thought of his Joanna's infant face - her slight yellow curls. Gone now.

"Mr T!"

"Quiet!" he snarled. He lifted the rattle to his ear and shook it. It sounded like bones clacking together in a coffin.

Mrs Lovett had got up from the bed. She was pleading silently, hoping he would drop the rattle and go back up to his tower.

But he didn't. "You_ stole _it, Mrs Lovett." He held the rattle close, and eventually slipped it into his vest pocket.

He now looked at her. The red rouge looked as if it were melting, and her dark eyes were smudged with bags underneath. She was no better, Sweeney realised suddenly, than the pathetic beggar woman that haunted Fleet Street.

"Well, Mrs Lovett?"

It was obvious she had stolen it. Her eyes were beginning to flood, and Sweeney knew women only cried when they were pregnant, or extremely happy. And since Mrs Lovett was neither of those, and was never likely to be any of those, Sweeney felt sure she was crying to hide her guilt. Crocodile tears, was what they had called it back in Australia.

"What else did you fleece from Joanna's crib?" he accused, wresting the wicker basket from the floor and tearing it apart as he imagined the Judge had torn his Lucy.

"Nothin', I swear - " Mrs Lovett stooped at the edge of the bed. She could only watch despairingly as the precious items were scattered every which ways.

The bib.

The lace christening gown.

The little white boots.

The tiny silver spoon inlaid with silver.

The little sailor doll with the cracked blue eyes and the broken neck.

"Please - " Mrs Lovett fell amongst the items, and clutched at the closest thing. The broken sailor doll.

But that wasn't all.

Sweeney was hunting now, on the trail for blood. He moved around the poky room, until he spied the sad little object tucked away in the corner.

It was covered in mosquito netting, and when he lifted the edges he was half-afraid he'd discover a dead babe wrapped in swaddling. He wouldn't put it past Mrs Lovett.

"I should kill you for this," he said, flicking up his razors. He nearly tripped coming forward, and clutched Mrs Lovett's arms to steady himself.

The razor was open, and sunk down into her tough, pale skin like teeth into a crisply cooked pie.

"Whoever thought a woman could bleed so much," was all Sweeney said.

They watched the blood seethe and drip onto the floor.

It splattered onto Sweeney's boots. It soaked into Joanna's gown, into the little white boots. It even filled the crater rim of the little spoon.

"No harm done," Mrs Lovett attempted half-cheerily, bobbing down on the floor to scoop up the broken, bloodied things.

"Leave it Mrs Lovett. The damage is done."

He was right. Nellie rose, and didn't bother to wipe the sticky valley of blood pooling out of her arm.

"Why don't I kill you, Mrs Lovett?"

It wasn't a threat. Sweeney sat down on Mrs Lovett's hard springy bed, flicking the blade in and out.

He didn't know why he didn't just finish them both off now.

"I can't answer that, love," she said, eventually fishing an old rag from her chest of drawers. She bandaged it swiftly, as if it were one of her pies.

She came and plopped on the bed beside him.

"Why can't you leave my child in peace," Sweeney said brokenly. "Leave Joanna be." He felt like crying like a babe.

But that could never happen. Sweeney hadn't cried. He never would cry.

"Love," Mrs Lovett said softly, stroking his white sleeve with her bandaged arm. Some of the blood still seeped through, and spotted itself on Sweeney's clothes.

"Who were you singing to?" he asked.

"I wosn't singing." Mrs Lovett looked straight ahead, and stuffed her hands into her lap. She was imagining someone -

"Don't lie to me, my pet. You were singing just like that filthy old woman."

"Wot filthy old woman?" Mrs Lovett said quickly, darting her large eyes up at him like a sparrow caught stuffing a worm in its beak.

"The crazy old beggar," Sweeney spat. The very thought of the urine-soaked stench of that woman was enough to make Sweeney feel off.

Rusty thick blood he could handle.

Broken women he could not.

"O'right," she sighed, clutching her hands together. "It wos me singing."

_"J__oanna,"_ he croaked.

At this Mrs Lovett snapped. She almost leapt off the springy bed, and began to fix up the wicker-basket, and cover over the crib. "It's not all about bloody - "

Sweeney's face clouded.

"Wot I mean is - I didn't steal all them things!"

"But you _did_, Mrs Lovett. Did you think I might be entitled to keep the only bits left of my family?"

She nodded. "'Course I did. I took them....I needed...." She didn't finish.

Instead, she sat on the floor, and calmly unwrapped her bandage.

They didn't drift from each other this time. Their eyes connected, and Sweeney knew immediately what she was suggesting. "_No_, Mrs Lovett."

"Chop me up into little bits, please, Mr T," she said, holding her arm forward as a sacrificial offering. "It would be best for us both. Chop me into little pieces. Just as you please."

She took out the broken sailor doll, and pressed her wound briefly against its porcelain surface. "Chop me up," she repeated, and her voice came out strained and sing-song.

_What was she saying?_ Nellie hardly knew anymore.

Sweeney tore the doll away and threw it into the corner of the room. She was pitiful, and the thought of bringing his singing razors against the heaving ghost of her throat sickened him now. Now that he was thinking rationally again.

"Tempting, Mrs Lovett," he said with disgust, "but it would _not_ be best. Who else is going to bake the pies?"

He dragged her to her feet, and bound the wound with sailor's strength.

She couldn't tell if he was joking. Mr T so very rarely made a joke. She burst out laughing. "Ooh Mr Todd, you's a funny one!"

Sweeney stared at her. "Are you _mad, _Mrs Lovett?"

She was gripping the edge of the dresser, and her body shook as though she were having a seizure. "We're all a little mad, Mr T," she managed at last.

"Hmm," Sweeney considered.

"I'm not opening up shop," Mrs Lovett said, when some of the madness had left her at last.

"And you're not planning to throw yourself into the Thames?"

Nellie shook her head. "Don't be so dramatic Mr T. I'm going to visit someone." She fixed her hair at her mirror, and picked up the wicker basket.

"This isn't a _game_, Mrs Lovett," he snarled. "Those are Joanna's things."

"Can't I borrow them?" she begged. "Just for the morning?"

"You don't have any friends. Who could you possibly visit?"

Mrs Lovett felt stung. "It's a very old friend. They live far-out of town. He's mute. Probably deaf too. He won't give us away, if that's wot concerns you, Mr T."

"I don't want Joanna's things to leave this house."

"As you wish, Mr T." She emptied the wicker basket into the crib, and took one of her few possesions from her desk.

It was a small silver brush. Albert had bought it as a wedding gift.

"Can I come?" Sweeney followed her out into the kitchen.

They both stepped over Toby's fallen body. The boy had drunken himself into a gin-stupor again.

Mrs Lovett was tying the shawl around her shoulders. "I thought you hated the sun an' the country an' all them things."

Sweeney didn't answer. He cast his gaze beyond the windows, and watched the families amble to and fro from church. It was hard not to feel like throttling every smiling face and happy father that bore his child up on his shoulders.

Nellie sighed. "Come along then. Won't hurt, I guess."

*** * ***

**Go on to Chapter Two - I had to break up the one-shot!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

*** * ***

"Stop 'ere thanks," Mrs Lovett said to the driver, and dropped down from the buggy. Sweeney copied, and didn't pay the driver another look.

The road was wide and dry, nothing at all like London's streets.

"Just through 'ere, love," she said, and pushed open the rusty white gates.

A graveyard was the last place Sweeney had been expecting.

"Are you sure - "

Mrs Lovett whipped her head back, and gave him one of her no-nonsense looks. "'Course I'm sure."

They didn't speak for a long while. Mrs Lovett guided him at times with her hand, touching the edge of his palm, the top of his shoulder.

They walked through high grass and brambles, and a small field of wild flowers, until they at last came to the graves.

Most of them were very old. Many of the surnames were unfamiliar. It was the local village graveyard, but no one it seemed had any money to look after it.

Young trees were shooting their roots around the sides of the tomb stones. Many of the graves were cracked or completely broken in two.

"These are the new ones," Mrs Lovett said, walking comfortably down a narrow row of graves. She obviously knew her way around.

"What is this, Mrs Lovett -" Sweeney stopped. It sounded odd to hear his voice ring out amisdt a place such as this.

_"There,"_ she said softly, and bent down in the grass. She was carrying a pair of garden shears, and began to trim around the wild spot until it was neat at last.

Sweeney wouldn't have known there was a grave unless Mrs Lovett had pointed it out. The head stone read:

_**"Taken by God's Grace. Jebediah Lovett, son of Eleanor and Albert Lovett. 7 months."**_

Sweeney rounded on her. "You never told me there was a child."

Nellie shrugged. "You never asked," she said. Her eyes were two bottomless wells.

"Joanna was almost six months when - "

"When they took her?"

Sweeney nodded. "Your boy - what -"

Nellie knelt by the grave. It was a tiny little square, covered in sky-blue tiles. Two little carved marble angels hung over the top of the tomb.

"He died o' consumption. Nellie looked up at him, and swiped a few stray tears.

He didn't say anything. What could he say? It was common for a child to die so young. Lucy had almost been expecting that Joanna -

"An expensive grave, Mrs Lovett." He doubted he'd ever afford such a thing for his Joanna. Or his Lucy.

Nellie didn't blush. She blinked. "I know. Albert had his family pay for it. No way we could afford such a fine thing as that."

"Then why - "

"When Albert died, they saw their obligation to me as finished. They let me keep the pie-shop though. Could 'ave taken it from me, but they didn't."

She placed the little silver comb at the end of the grave.

"What about these?" Sweeney picked a bunch of the coloured wildflowers.

"Jeb would like them," Mrs Lovett said with a cracked smile.

They worked together, and in ten minutes had arranged the flowers nicely on the child's grave. Sweeney put Joanna's rattle on the grave.

Mrs Lovett sent up a prayer, and when she was done the sun was high in the sky. "Come on love. Life is for the alive, as they say."

Sweeney nodded. "Indeed." He accepted her arm, and they wove their way out of the still, sleeping plots.

But neither of them really believed that.

*** * ***

They were standing on the dusty road now.

Neither of them knew quite what to do. They were certain of one thing: it was too early to go home. Back to that fiery pit of throats and pies.

Mrs Lovett was putting wildflowers in her hair, and on her dress.

"That's enough flowers, Mrs Lovett. You're massacring them." The corners of Sweeney's mouth twitched upwards.

"Well it would be a lot easier if you lent me your razors. You could lop a whole lot off - "

Their smiles faded. The mention of razors had depressed them.

"If I wos to die Mr T, would you do me a favour?"

"That would depend, Mrs Lovett."

"Would you visit me?"

Sweeney turned his mouth up into a wry smile. "That could prove difficult, Mrs Lovett."

"You _know _wot I mean," she said impatiently. "Would you stop by me grave, from time ta time? Sprinkle a few daises on top of me head-stone? I couldn't stand being lonely, Mr Todd."

She was gripping his shirt sleeves now, and hardly seem to notice.

"Don't you think it'd be lonely? Oh, how lonely. Lyin' cold and bored in them poky boxes, wif-out a breath of air or a spot of sun to lift the gloom. Oh Mr T, I don't think I can stand it."

"Take heart," Sweeney said grimly, with a touch of irony colouring his voice, "you're not dead yet."

"I know, I know," her voice trailed off huskily. Some of the panic had gone, but her eyes still lingered back to that spot in the cemetery.

Sweeney knew what she was thinking. They were the same thoughts that often circled through his battered head.

"You don't have to mean it," she went on, that slight hysteria bubbling just beneath the surface, "but it'd mean an' awful lot to me."

"What?" Sweeney was miles away.

"If you left flowers on me….oh neva mind!"

"No," said Sweeney, stopping her with one of his barber hands. "If it comes to it Mrs Lovett," he said solemly, "I will do it."

"I expect ya will," Mrs Lovett said nodding, cheery as pie now, "but mind you bring me daises. Or forget-me-nots. But not roses."

Sweeney was humouring her now. "Why not roses, my pet?"

"They is awful things. Pretty, snarky things. All them thorns, and then they go and drop their petals an' die. You neva see daises carryin' on that way. I hope neva to see a daisy wilt."

They had stopped outside a village inn. Some sort of Irish jig was playing, and it warmed Mrs Lovett's bones to hear the sound of dancing voices and dizzy violins.

"Let's go in," she said suddenly, yanking him by the hand.

"_The Judge,_ Mrs Lovett," Sweeney growled. "He might turn - "

"Oh hang the Judge! Just one song!"

***

The villages were happy, as they had never seen human beings happy. The old men were playing chess and smoking pipes in the corner.

The rest of the inn was dancing and drinking. Men and women drinking by the tavern. Men and women tapping their feet and spinning to the sounds of violins.

A boy Toby's age was playing one of the violins, and had his eyes closed swaying softly.

They had obviously never heard of Judges and injustices and cold London streets.

Sweeney briefly remembered that same dizzy feeling - that last afternoon he'd shared with Joanna and Lucy before the Judge -

"Mr T," Mrs Lovett said breathily.

Sweeney looked down on her. He didn't know how they had managed to dance so close. But it comforted him. He hadn't held a woman in - Sweeney could barely remember what if felt to hold a woman.

Her eyes were closed, and she had her head rested into the crook of his neck. She could die now, and she wouldn't care. Let someone strike her down, as long as she had this moment of oblivion. "You know I wos serious 'bout that grave thing. It's not as if I've family of me own to go an' rememba me – "

"Of course, Mrs Lovett. On one condition."

Nellie's eyes shot open. "What?"

"As long as you promise to visit mine."

Mrs Lovett lifted her head, and the look she gave him spooked Sweeney. They were so alike, he realised. She was staring at him as if it was the last time she was ever going to see him alive. "Cross me 'eart an' 'ope to die, Mr T." She even did the childish little cross. "I'll be there everyday, wif-out fail."

Sweeney half-smiled, picturing Mrs Lovett traipsing dutifully to his grave every morning with a fresh bucket of flowers. She'd take her picnic blanket, some pies, no doubt, and sit there talking to the silent grave stone until noon. The poor graveyard would be sick of Mrs Lovett by the end of one week, Sweeney could imagine.

She was now nuzzling her red curls beneath the crook his chin. He allowed it, because the spilling fountain of red reminded him of dripping rubies. He fingered the little curls and watched them fall right through the curves of his hands. He wondered if there was any difference….Mrs Lovett's hair was as delightful as blood, he realised.

"Can I ask you a question love?" Nellie interrupted. She was trembling just at the barest touch – Sweeney's hand accidently brushed the back of her neck.

He looked down at her, and the penetrating eyes told her quite clearly.

He was all there. He wasn't off with the fairies. He wasn't imagining she was his dead wife. He knew it was Nellie he was caressing.

"What, my love?"

Nellie shivered. She knew he didn't love her. But it thrilled her no end._ My love, _he'd said.

It was sick. Nellie knew it was twisted – but she was imagining, as he held her, of a false past.

Instead of Benjamin and Lucy cooing over Joanna in the barber shop up Mrs Lovett's emporium all those years ago, it was Benjamin and Nellie, cooing over her little dead son. He would never grow up, but in Nellie's head she could imagine that Benjamin had been a proud father, a decent man, a fair husband. In her head, Benjamin kissed her boy goodnight on the head every night, and together they would watch the child sleep.

"Do you think….he's….my son's up there?" She lifted her brows up, as if she could see through the ceiling to the pearly gates of heaven.

"I am a demon, Mrs Lovett. How should I know? Or have you forgotten?"

"I guess that makes us both demons, Mr T. But even demons 'ave 'opes an' dreams. I'd like to think he's up there, up where the angels sing and all the priests an' judges 'ave gone to hell."

"Don't we _all_, Mrs Lovett."

Mrs Lovett seized his arm. "Then you _do_ think there's a chance!"

Sweeney shrugged. "Not for you. Not for I. We, my pet, are destined for the darkest pits of hell. But if any angel on earth rose to heaven – it is surely my Lucy. And your son," he said gently, remembering the sad little blue tiles, and the way Mrs Lovett had attempt to piece them back together.

She was really rather pretty, Sweeney decided, breaking their embrace to smile slightly at her childish dress and bobbing curls.

It was a broken smile, to be sure, but Nellie memorised it inside out.

"Come, my pet." The air was chill stepping out of the sweaty inn. Sweeney shrugged off his jacket, and cast it over Mrs Lovett's thin shoulders.

Nellie beamed, and linked his arm in hers. "It might not be the sea, Mr T, but we'll make a home together. Even in hell."

They were walking home to that familiar demon shop on Fleet Street.

Sweeney wasn't really listening. He was watching the stray people rush to and fro out of shutting shops, scuttling back too the safety of their homes.

There was no one else in the word, he realised, quite like Mrs Lovett. No other woman would walk arm and arm with a murderer without a care in the world.

"Of course, my dove," he whispered to her. "Anything you say."

Mrs Lovett was buoyant, and Sweeney's heart was full of joy.

They almost skipped down the street, except Mrs Lovett's bones were too weary for that and Sweeney had forgotten how.

But he was full of joy! He was going to spill the blood of the Judge.

They were both going to home to hell.

*******

**This is staying as a one-shot. Hope you liked it!**


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